Dr. Peng Li's Presentation Summarizing 50 years of Acupuncture Research Cont'd 2

These are the results of their clinical study on acupuncture in hypertensive patients. I've successfully treated hypertensive patients in my clinic discussed here. For the record, I did not use electroacupuncture.
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Dr. Peng Li's Presentation Summarizing 50 years of Acupuncture Research Cont'd 1

This is a graph of what the research shows concerning different acupuncture points and their effect on rVLM in the medulla, thought to be implicated in cardiovascular effects of acupuncture. As you can see P5-P6, LI10 and LI11 are the most active, then S36S37. In their studies they use LI 16 and LI17 as inert points, their sham.
What this slide shows it that electro acupuncture has a longer term effect than manual acupuncture. They call the short term effect the "somatic nerve" effect.
This gets to the nub of something I'm grappling with in practice. The research insists that electroacupuncture is the more effective modality, that manual acupuncture is transient. But in practice, I use electroacupuncture very sparingly because of the significant incidence of irritation and adverse side effects. Just yesterday, I saw a patient who I had helped with a persistent tendonitis of her elbow which had become chronic. I treated her with spinal points, some Ashi points and some distal points and she had improved by 90%. After the conference, I felt that I "should" use electroacupuncture, since that's apparently where all the efficacy lies. She returned yesterday, angry and upset. Ever since I tried the electroacupuncture over a week ago, all the benefit was gone and she was in acute pain again. This is the quandary. This is why I don't go to electroacupuncture unless manual isn't working, even though the experts don't agree.
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Dr. Peng Li's Presentation Summarizing 50 years of Acupuncture Research

Dr. Li covered quite a bit of ground as you can imagine during his talk at ISAMS. I'll just feature a few highlights over the next few blog posts.
This slide is taken from Goldman's work entitled "Adenosine A1 receptors mediate local anti-nociceptive effects of acupuncture."
Dr. Li then goes on to describe the different protocols for choosing acupuncture points
1. Ashi point- local acupoints for Pain treatment
local release of chemicals, e.g. adenosine (A1 receptor).
convergent input to nearby spinal segment.
2.Acupoints related to Spinal segments
convergent inputs from internal organs and somatic n.
Gate control theory
3. Distant acupoints- supra-spinal integration
Selection of Acupoints

Adenosine A1 receptors mediate local anti-nociceptive effects of acupuncture.

Overuse of antibiotics could be involved in a number of conditions

To be filed in the "First Do No Harm" bin, overuse of antibiotics may be implicated not only in obesity, but Irritable Bowel Disease, allergies and asthma. Excerpts follow. Info on my practice here.

In Some Cases, Even Bad Bacteria May Be Good
By KATE MURPHY

THE HYPOTHESIS

Overuse of antibiotics increases the risk of obesity.

THE INVESTIGATOR

Dr. Martin Blaser, New York University Langone Medical Center.


Overuse of antibiotics has led to the creation of drug-resistant bacteria — so-called superbugs, like methicillin-resistant staphylococcus aureus. But now some researchers are exploring an equally unsettling possibility: Antibiotic abuse may also be contributing to the increasing incidence of obesity, as well as allergies, inflammatory bowel disease, asthma and gastroesophageal reflux.

Among those sounding the alarm is Dr. Martin Blaser, a professor of microbiology at New York University Langone Medical Center. In a commentary published in August in the journal Nature, he asserted that antibiotics are permanently altering microbial flora of the human body, also known as the microbiome or microbiota, with serious health consequences...

..
His lab has since produced a stream of findings supporting his suspicion. Dr. Blaser and his colleagues discovered, for instance, that the stomach behaves differently after a course of antibiotics eradicates resident H. pylori.

After a meal, levels of ghrelin, a hunger hormone secreted in the stomach, are supposed to fall. But in subjects without H. pylori, the amount of ghrelin in the bloodstream held steady, in essence telling the brain to keep eating.

Moreover, mice in Dr. Blaser’s lab fed antibiotics in dosages similar to those given to children to treat ear and throat infections — which is enough to kill H. pylori in many patients — had marked increases in body fat even though their diets remained the same. (Indeed, farmers have long given antibiotics to livestock to promote weight gain without increasing caloric intake.)

These results dovetail with research by Peter Turnbaugh, a Harvard University geneticist, in collaboration with Dr. Jeffrey Gordon, a gastroenterologist at Washington University in St. Louis. They have found that the ratios of various bacteria in the guts of obese mice and obese humans were significantly different from those of lean controls, suggesting that altering the stomach’s microbial balance with antibiotics might put patients at risk for gaining weight.

Antibiotic overuse may be the root of other health problems, too. An epidemiologist at New York University, Yu Chen, has found an inverse correlation between H. pylori infection and childhood-onset asthma, hay fever and skin allergies in 7,600 participants in the National Health and Nutrition Survey.

Observation research has shown that the elimination of H. pylori actually increases the risk of gastric reflux, which is itself associated with asthma as well as esophageal diseases. Researchers in Switzerland and Germany have reported that mice given H. pylori actually are protected against asthma...

But wider use of antibiotics may be wreaking havoc far beyond that resulting from the loss of H. pylori. “We have so far focused on H. pylori because we have the diagnostic tests to detect it, but you could say H. pylori is an indicator organism for what is probably a vast and disappearing microbiota and increasing disease risk,” said Dr. Blaser...

Review: Acupuncture and Acupressure Effective for Primary Dysmenorrhea

I'm not familiar with the methodology of these Cochrane analyses, but I do know that they often reveal that there haven't been enough studies, or that acupuncture isn't effective, etc... So the fact that this one states that there is some good evidence makes me think that there's some good evidence for acupuncture in primary dysmenorrhea.

Acupuncture and acupressure may be an effective treatment to manage primary dysmenorrhea
Despite the limited number of studies, a recent Cochrane meta-analysis reported acupuncture and acupressure may be an effective treatment to manage primary dysmenorrhea. Ten trials (n=944) were included in this meta-analysis; of which six (n=673) were acupuncture trials and four (n=271) were acupressure trials. Of the acupuncture trials, acupuncture significantly improved pain when compared to a placebo control (OR=9.5, 95% CI 21.17 – 51.8), as well as NSAIDs (SMD -0.70, 95% CI CI -1.08 to -0.32) and Chinese herbs (SMD -1.34, 95% CI -1.74 to -0.95). [read more] Acupressure also provided pain relief when compared to a placebo (SMD -0.99, 95% CI -1.48 - -0.49). Acupuncture also strongly reduced menstrual symptoms when compared with medication in one trial (OR 3.25, 95% CI 1.53 – 6.86) and when compared to Chinese herbs in another trial (OR 7.0, 95% CI 2.22 – 22.06). Acupressure also reduced menstrual symptoms when compared with a placebo control (SMD -0.58, 95% CI, -1.06 to -0.10).

Smith CA, Zhu X, He L, Song J. Acupuncture for primary dysmenorrhoea. Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews 2011, Issue 1. Art. No.: CD007854. DOI: 10.1002/14651858.CD007854.pub2

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